Morning Circle Time

Have you heard of morning time? If so have you considered doing it? I hope to share with you the ups and downs we have experienced as we’ve spent our mornings together. Hopefully, this will give you an idea of some things that might work for your family.

Starting off with the Lord

First and foremost when we first started homeschooling I knew I wanted to start with a morning scripture and have the spirit guide our studies each day. I really struggle with anxiety and controlling my anger and emotions. My husband was honestly worried about me homeschooling because he honestly didn’t think I could handle it. I still he think he’s right, yet here we are handling each and every day. I attribute every day to divine assistance and share perseverance. Each day truly goes better as we’ve started off our morning time with prayer, scripture, and a church song of some sort. Here are some ideas of what to use for your Bible time.

x Character study
x Hymns
x Children’s Bible Stories
x Scripture reading
x Come Follow Me from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

What do I include

After our essential time with the Lord to start our day, we have a very loose schedule to decide which things I want to do each day. These can include some of the following ideas.

x History lesson
x Science lesson
x Music
x Occupation study video
x Animal video
x Read aloud book
x Writing practice
x Nature hike
x Learning game
x Other videos

I just go downstairs and grab whatever is really pressing that we haven’t done in a while or what I feel like needs done. Now before you think that I’m super crazy for trying to implement all these things I want to share some news, we don’t implement all these things at the same time. They are just things that, depending on my mood and the needs of my kids, we’ll do for the day.

When should I do it

You might ask why we do all these subjects in the afternoon? Maybe you would rather do math and english first thing and leave the science and history for afternoon. That is totally ok. We have also done that. Another thing we have done is split up our ‘morning time’ stuff. We’ve done a very simple bible time with a prayer, scripture, song, and the pledge of alligience. It just seems like the best thing for us it to get all of our morning subjects out of the way before we do our independent work. It was hard for my family to get in the mindset of having to come back together in the afternoon. My patience is definitely better first thing in the morning. Having all my kids together where we have fun, but they also throw their behaviors, requires a lot of patience from me.

Helping them pay attention

Another thing you might have noticed is morning time can be a little stressful. How do I curb the stress a little. Some of the ways that can really help some of my kids to get them to settle down and listen is by keeping their hands busy. I already mentioned how I like them to eat breakfast, but I have other ideas to. My kids are sometimes allowed to play with kinetic sand, playdoh, or draw on paper as long as I can tell they are listening. I will ask them questions to make sure they are still paying attention while keeping their hands busy.

Here’s a list of some things that could help to keep their hands busy or help them pay attention.

x Legos
x Kinetic sand
x Rainbow scratch books
x Play doh
x Watercolors
x Pastels
x Drawing
x Eating breakfast or a snack
x Mega tiles
x Beads
x Suncatchers
x Modeling clay
x Wiggle seat
x Exercise Ball

When do we start morning time? I’m not an early riser. Since becoming a mommy I really like my quiet time at night by myself or with my husband so I don’t get up super early. On weekdays I am almost always out of bed by 8 am which is when we plan on starting school. We all eat around the table while we do morning time together. I like when my kid’s have their mouths full and something to do. When their mouths or full we don’t have as much fighting, talking, and complaining. Oftentimes our morning time follows somewhat of this routine, but I’m not bound to this schedule at all

8-8:15 Prayer, Scripture, Gospel song
8:15-9:15 Science or History Lesson
9:15-9:30 Read aloud
9:30-9:45 Family Writing Prompt
9:45-9:55 Recite pledge of alligience, article of faith, vocabulary word, and scripture

After circle time my kids and I get ready for the day. We get dressed, brush teeth, and the kids go outside to play and complete a few farm chores. While they are outside getting rid of all their extra energy and exploring the ranch we live on, I get ready for the next subjects we are working on and do some quick touch up housework.

I really enjoy our morning time together. That’s not to say we don’t have serious issues often, because we definitely do. In fact, these seious arguments are almost always the reason we go hiking early in the morning. However, I’ve tried other curriculum where we didn’t do family science together and I didn’t like it. I really feel like this time with all my kids helps feel all our buckets with love and help us to learn to get along with each other even though there is often fighting and rowdy kids.

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Sources

Cindy, December 17, 2021, How to Keep Active Kids Busy During Read-Alouds, March 8, 2023, https://ourjourneywestward.com/kids-busy-during-read-alouds/

amazon.com, March 18, 2023, March 18, 2023, https://www.amazon.com/s?k=homeschool&crid=182AM9O8Q0RPH&sprefix=homesc%2Caps%2C732&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

New Testament 2023, Come, Follow Me—For Primary: New Testament 2023, March 8, 2023, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-primary-new-testament-2023?lang=eng